You can simply move them to the outside wall of the hive and crowd them into the wall. The bees will rework them. They don't do that if you place your frames between capped comb or brood combs.

06-25-2008, 12:08 PM

dug_6238

Ross' method has the virtue of being simpler. I've done it that way too, and they shaved away somewhere between 1/4 inch and 3/8 inch.

I don't know how you have your frames layed out in your box, but you could actually try shaving a frame that doesn't have a lot of honey (safer if you're worried about honey dripping down the frame) and then also try placing one against the outer wall like Ross says. This does take a little time, but you might apprciate the results of comparing the two methods. I honestly can't say anything against that way other than 'time to complete', because when I tried it, I got good results from that as well, it just took longer for them to shorten the cells.

06-25-2008, 02:39 PM

Ross

The other option is to move them into a 8 or 9 frame super where you want fat combs.

06-25-2008, 10:01 PM

RickyRicardo

Well I have 9 frames in my brood box and 8 in the super (10 frame box).

Just because I initially started with a feeder in the brood box that took a bit more than one frame space and now I am stuck with Thick, very thick or super size LOL

I shaved a section from one and put it against the side, even after shaving it touches the outer wall in two places (I hope I did not trap too many bees in the process) Looking forward to see if they move some of the honey and wax elsewhere.

Also, I realised my brood box is getting kind of honey bound so moved a frame full honey to the supper and put an empty frame.

Could not locate the queen though this time (she is not marked) but the hive was peaceful and busy and lots of caped cells, not as many brood as last time (dont ask for eggs I have not figured what they really look like yet). But I would say half as many larvae as last time.

Cheers

07-02-2008, 07:51 AM

Michael Bush

>the thing is whereever I had the old foundation frames beside an empty frame, they double the thickness of the comb!

That is what they typicall do if it's ucapped honey comb. They just make it thicker. If it's capped, it works fine to put them between. If it's brood it works fine. Irregular comb happens in all hives regardless of foundation or not. If you put foundation between drawn, ucapped honey comb you'll get the same results.

07-02-2008, 08:09 AM

RickyRicardo

Since its the first year of the hive, should I just let them do so and put fewer frames in the box? Rather than try to fight that? At the end of the day honey is honey and I am not planning to use any of it since they will need it...

Whats your views?

07-02-2008, 08:55 AM

Michael Bush

>Since its the first year of the hive, should I just let them do so and put fewer frames in the box?

That's what I'd do.

07-07-2008, 05:51 PM

Hillbillynursery

The bees do regress from the 5.4mm foundation size when you go foundationless. I have not tried to get a good average of the cell sizes. I do not have more drones than I did with foundation. I do know that when I first got the bees totally on foundationless that I was finding many 4.6mm cell sizes being used for worker brood. At the top of each frame was honey storage cells but the first few rows near the top of the frame being used for brood were 5.2mm. The average between 4.6 and 5.2 is 4.9. So I do believe I can call this a regression of cell sizes. But I have not had to treat for mites in 3 years which is the goal.

I do agree I made more honey with WAX foundation. The plastic foundation that came with my first hive purchased made me wish I never saw it. I may never try plastic foundation again. I have thought about using foundation in my supers. But I like the idea of not spending money. If I want more honey I will just set up another hive. I have my small farm of 5 acres, my dad's 50 acres, and the person who uses my bees as pollenators of 120 acres as perminate locations. So it is easy to expand.

07-07-2008, 07:36 PM

dhood

Foundationless...

I tried using foundationless frames on a split, every other frame foundationless. Before I read about the starter strip, so I just put in empty frames. Supprisingly, they are drawing nice straight comb. But the comb looks more like a natural comb in shape, will they draw it out to the bottom?
Or is this because I did not give them a starter strip?

07-07-2008, 08:00 PM

Ross

They will eventually attach to the bottom, maybe not all the way across however.

07-07-2008, 08:27 PM

Hillbillynursery

It really depends on the bees. It has nothing to do with a starter strip or no starter strip. It nearly aways gets attached most of the way across the bottom with a few holes for passage. I had one hive though that the bottom brood chamber was never filled to the bottom bar. I moved these frames slowly to the next brood box up where the bees promptly filled the gap. That was the only case where I saw this as a semi permament problem. It is nearly always fully attached except the corners.

07-20-2008, 10:24 AM

Michael Bush

Interestingly they often chew out the bottom of wax foundation and leave that same gap. :)